March Madness

No, this post is not about NCAA March Madness even though maybe it should be since SIU was kicking ass until they ran into Kansas. Sorry to all my friends back home and down at SIU, I was hoping that Kansas would lose. This post is about the fun I have had so far this March. Some of you out there might have wonder why you haven't seen me online for a couple weeks and those of you who know me know that it would take a lot to keep me offline that long. Well I spent the beginning of March in the hospital, I was in there from March 1st to March 19th. I will use this post to inform everyone of what exactly happened.

The story begins March 1st when I went to the emergency room with sharp pains in my gut. The pain turned out to be due to gallstones. This in itself is rare for a man to get, let alone at the age of 21. So the doctors were already interested in my case and then their fun just continued. During a routine procedure before removing my gallbladder a complication arose, I contracted pancreatitis this only happens 5-7% of the time. So I am really starting to feel special after this considering everything that is happening is unlikely. But of course I am specialKevin so my fun was not over yet. My doctors noticed that my platelet levels were low and I was starting to bruise and my nose was bleeding and I had acute kidney failure. These were not symptoms of the pancreatitis but of a very rare blood condition known as Thrombotic Thrombocytopenic Purpura or TTP. TTP occurs in 3.5 people per million every year. TTP is such a rare and interesting illness that it was featured in an episode of House M.D. (Episode #119 Kids), not only this but the episode actually replayed while I was in the hospital suffering from TTP. The treatment for the TTP is plasmapheresis, where the take out my plasma and replace it with plasma from 17 other people. But another connection to House M.D. is that the plasmapheresis team that treated me was consulted by the staff of House M.D. on the procedure of plasmapheresis. I still have to get outpatient treatments of plasmapheresis to treat the TTP but it is nice to be out of the hospital, especially since that is not how I wanted to spend my birthday and spring break.

I would now like to thank everybody for their wishes and prayers. Also thanks to all my friends who came to visit me in the hospital and help to make the best out of my birthday.